Homemade Soup Recipes
The best and easiest soup recipes

Homemade Tomato Bacon Bean and Apple Soup

This unique homemade tomato soup is full of wonderful surprises. It contains a rare combination of tomato, bacon, white beans and apple slices. It’s surprisingly good – especially the next day when the flavors have melded together overnight. The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled, and substitutions can be made; you can use pinto or kidney beans, Canadian bacon, and mix and match the herbs and spices.

Homemade Tomato Bacon Bean and Apple Soup

Ingredients:

• 10 slices bacon
• 15 ml of olive oil (1 tablespoon)
• 1 small white onion
• 6 g of minced garlic (2 teaspoons)
• 2 stalks celery
• 475 ml of beef, chicken or vegetable stock (2 cups)
• 1 - 410 g can of navy or other white beans (around 14 to 16 ounces)
• 1 - 410 g can of stewed tomatoes, Italian style (14.5 ounce can)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 medium sweet apple
• 120 ml of Marsala, red wine or dry sherry (1/2 cup)
• salt and pepper to your liking
• cornstarch if needed for thickening (optional)

Procedure:

Peel and chop the onion. Chop the celery. Peel and core the apple and slice it into thin slices. If the slices turn out to be very large, you can cut them in half to make them easier to eat.

Chop the slices of bacon (this is best done if they are a bit frozen) and fry them over medium high heat in a deep heavy skillet or a soup pot until they are uniformly browned. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon pieces leaving behind as much of the bacon grease as you can. Put them off to the side for now.

Add the onion, garlic and celery to the bacon grease and saute the onion, minced garlic, and celery a few minutes until they are soft. If you need more grease, you can add some of the olive oil. After they are soft, add the stock, the white beans, the stewed tomatoes and the bay leafs. Bring everything to a boil then reduce to a simmer.

Cook the sliced apple and the wine or sherry in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the apple is soft.

Put the cooked bacon, the cooked apple and the wine from the sauce pan into the soup pot and mix well. Add a pinch or two each of salt and pepper, depending on your taste, and add the olive oil. Allow the mixture to simmer while stirring frequently. At this point the soup only needs to cook until the flavors have had a chance to blend well.

About 15 minutes before you are ready to serve the soup, remove about a cup of the soup and dissolve the cornstarch in it. Pour it back into the soup and continue to simmer. If you are satisfied with the thickness of the soup as it is, you can omit the cornstarch.

Be sure to remove the bay leaves before serving. Top the homemade tomato bacon apple and bean soup with mozzarella cheese or parmesan cheese as a garnishment if you like. Another idea is to top it with crunchy sourdough bread cubes and add a layer of sliced Swiss cheese, then broiled it until the cheese is melted and serve. This tomato soup is also great with hot cornbread or grilled cheese sandwiches. You will probably find that the soup is even better as a leftover because it gives the flavors even more time to blend - so make a double or even triple recipe!